Con Man - Aufstieg und Fall des Barry Minkow

While I have seen some dogs in my time, and it is difficult to compare one bad movie to another, I would argue that this is clearly the worst movie of this year and possibly the worst movie since the turn of the century. Tortured is how I would describe the dialogue and story. Throughout the production they attempt with the deftness of a Hippo to ineptly attempt to steal little bits from other movies (cup drop from Usual Suspects) each time to poor effect. The. Dialogue. Is. So. Stilted. This is supposed to be a "con" movie. A heist, a caper. It should be high energy, snappy. It is not. It is so very not snappy. And yet, I have to say that in a bizarre way, I was sort of entertained. The whole thing is so unbelievably bad, it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I actually sat through the whole thing wondering every minute if it could get any worse and becoming shocked as it surpassed it's own mediocrity with every single scene as it continued it's spiral into oblivion. If you'd like to hate every single frame of a film for wasting your time and degrading your life, than this is the movie for you. I've given it zero stars, but I'd like to point out that my rating is absolute zero which would rate at -273 on the regular scale out of ten. Save yourself. Run away from this film.

The lead actor was 34 at the time of filming this dreadful film when his character is supposed to be16. Tells you all you need to know.

There's no way this film cost $25m I think Barry put in some bogus receipts.

The movie about con-gangster Minkow, often mentions how charismatic he was and had to be to be succesful. But seeing him playing himself in the second half of the movie (a very strange effect imo), made me question this. He doesn´t come over as charismatic.. or anything special. On the other hand he seems to have talked quite some known names from Hollywood to be in this flick.. so maybe it is true after all.. or he just paid them well (what i think is the reason for his "success" anyway.. greed.

Wow, I feel I was conned into watching a horrible movie... I am a big fan of Ving Rhames and James Caan. Talia Shire, Gianni Russo and Mark Hamill are in it too and I think they were all conned. I hope they were paid for their work. This is something you would see as a TV movie. I'm sure the true story is good but this movie isn't. I'm giving 5 Stars only because of the actors in it, not for the content. Could have been maid so much better but I hear Barry Minkow took the money. I say watch it and keep an open mind but don't get conned into thinking Barry Minkow is reformed or a Hero of any kind!